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La Statale e l’Europa: stato dell’arteChiara Tonelli

Prorettore alla Ricerca

Chiara RengoDivisione Servizi per la RicercaLERU’s ERP Community

Incontro Codau GDL Ricerca‐ Sotto gruppo Progetti EU e internazionaliPolitecnico di Torino ‐ 21 novembre 2016

Incontro Codau GDL Ricerca‐ Sotto gruppo Progetti EU e internazionali

dal 20 ottobre 2016

al 15 gennaio 2017

LERU was founded in 2002 as an association of research-intensive universities sharing thevalues of high-quality teaching in an environment of internationally competitive research.The League is committed to:• education through an awareness of the frontiers of human understanding;• the creation of new knowledge through basic research, which is the ultimate source ofinnovation in society;• the promotion of research across a broad front, which creates a unique capacity to recon-figure activities in response to new opportunities and problems.The purpose of the League is to advocate these values, to influence policy in Europe and todevelop best practice through mutual exchange of experience.

Incontro Codau GDL Ricerca‐ Sotto gruppo Progetti EU e internazionali – 21 novembre 2016

http://www.leru.org/files/publications/LERUs_interim_evaluation_of_Horizon_2020_final.pdf


A. What is Horizon 2020’s added value for Europe? Why is it relevant for the Union?

• EU on the global map competition for excellence• Structuring effects, introducing new policies

• Talents and ideas: MSCA and ERC!• Collaboration!• Facilitator in getting results to society and economy


LERU’s Interim Evaluation of Horizon 2020

B. Implementation state of play (I)

B.1. What is the state of the budget implementation?

• Previous H2020 budget cuts should be undone

• European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) 2.0 should not influence H2020’s budget



B. Implementation state of play (II)B.2.1. Oversubscription

Oversubscription threatens H2020’s reputation

Other organisations have suggested the narrowing of call topics.

To continue to foster creativity, flexibilityand choice of consortium setup, LERU would rather see the narrowing of the expected impact.



B. Implementation state of play (III)B.2.2. Crossing the innovation divide

• H2020 is not the solution, merely the driving force• Member States: start investing in talents

Financial incentives should not come from Horizon 2020 budgets but from the Structural Funds.Teaming and twinningIn the long run, we are however not convinced that the current schemes are the most effective way to address the low participation of EU13 beneficiaries in H2020.



B.2.3. The use of (financial) instruments

The EC should investigate using loans complementary to grants.

The use of loans vs. grants should also depend on the type ofbeneficiary.

LERU emphasises that universities must always be able to work withgrants in Horizon 2020, irrespective of the TRL level of the projectin which they are participating.

B. Implementation state of play (IV)



C. Relevance



C.1 Do the objectives still correspond to the needs of the EU, the Europe 2020 Strategy and the European Research Area? A) OPEN ACCESS: Given the divergence and large number of OA policies across Europe(currently 4664), the EC should take amore active role in aligning the different, andoccasionally conflicting, open access policies.

B) RRI: Future Horizon 2020 grant agreements could reasonably require recipient organisationsto have developed their own research integrity code or adopted a national or otherrecognised code

C) GENDER: We urge the EC to step up its efforts to recruit more gender experts forevaluating project proposals.

D) MATERNITY LEAVE: Whilst H2020 allows for the costs of such leave to be charged to thegrant, it does not provide any additional funding to recruit a cover post or to extendthe research period, in collaborative projects.

D. Effectiveness (I)

D.1.1. Horizon 2020’s focus on innovation

Impacts must be realistic, measurable and clear.

LERU also recommends the EC provides clear guidance onwhat is meant by impact so that all involved have thesame interpretation to hand.



D. Effectiveness (II)


At present there is a lack of fundamental researchopportunities for collaborative research.

LERU strongly recommends the EC takes a more balancedapproach and to spread its funding for collaborative research overall stages of the innovation pipeline and fund themaccordingly.



D. Effectiveness (III)


More funding is required for projects at lower TRL levels,especially in the societal challenges.

Although we refer to TRL levels in this paper, we wish to emphasisethat LERU is not in favour of maintaining TRL levels tocategorise research and innovation projects.



D. Effectiveness (IV)


A concrete suggestion already made by LERU is for the EC tooffer funding at the different stages of the innovationchain by introducing broad, challenge-based topics that“harvest” projects at different TRL levels at the sametime.



Three-stage rocket• Recurrent calls (hence predictable), broad and open ‘topics’• Harvesting results at different steps, allowing continuation to a

next step, as well as embarking at all steps• Long-term ’topics’ (areas), e.g. “Fighting chronic disease”

Step 1: “understanding disease”(low TRL, discovery research)

Step 2: “targets to beat disease”(medio TRL, up to proof of concept)

Step 3: “beating disease”(high TRL, track to innovation)

grantsgrants

grants/ loans

Stijn Delaurè, KU Leuven – Chair of LERU’s ERP community

D. Effectiveness (V)


Other forms of innovation such as social innovation are notgiven sufficient emphasis in the calls, despite these beingvital to innovation in society.

As stated above there certainly needs to be a cleareracknowledgement of the need for ‘innovative research’ andnot just ‘innovation as market exploitation’.



D. Effectiveness (VI)


Applicants feel under pressure to promise unrealisticimpacts to improve their chances of success and areselected on the basis of those promises.

LERU recommends the EC delivers work programmes andtopics with more realistic expected impacts, designed forthe real life-time of a project.



D. Effectiveness (VII)

D.1.2. Increasing impact of H2020 funding

We believe one of the measures which could increase theimpact of Horizon 2020 projects is the better tracking offunded projects.

We suggest the EC goes further and investigates how tobest organise cross-project networking, making it thenorm rather than the exception in the future.



D. Effectiveness (VIII)

D.1.2. Increasing impact of H2020 funding

LERU also suggests the EC look into the option ofproviding follow-up funding for collaborative projects.

The follow-up funding should be short term, for example 6 to18 months, and specifically aimed at bringing the project’soutput to the next stage in the innovation pipeline or,more generally, allow the project to achieve a much betteroutput or higher impact.



D. Effectiveness (IX)D.2. What balance between top down programming and bottom up action?

We recommend maintaining the challenge-based, non-prescriptiveapproach.LERU is convinced that Horizon2020 needs more early stagecollaborative research opportunities.

It is however important that calls for earlier stage projects arealso sufficiently bottom-up, to allow for the brightest ideas andthe best consortium to get funded.



D.2. What balance between top down programming and bottom up action?

Bottom-up initiatives are however not only important in earlierstage projects.

LERU believes it is also important to provide bottom-upfunding for close to market activities.



D. Effectiveness (X)

D. Effectiveness (XI)

D.3. Interdisciplinary CooperationAddressing today’s global challenges needs the involvement of awide variety of scientific disciplines, including those thatinvestigate humans, their culture, history and behaviour.

It is not enough to try to engage researchers from SocialSciences and Humanities (SSH) once a challenge has beenidentified by others.

SSH researchers should be engaged from the very beginningof the development in collaboration with researchers from thenatural and life sciences.



D.3. Interdisciplinary CooperationSSH researchers themselves need to put in genuine effort tolink up to other sciences, to get to know their way around Horizon2020 and to create more and better opportunities for themselves.But unfortunately this is difficult if SSH research is limited toidentifying legal boundaries, developing or assessing businessplans and market opportunities or to investigating if a certaintechnology would be acceptable to consumers.In the interest of all of science, SSH cannot and should not belimited to an incidental role.



D. Effectiveness (XII)

E. Efficiency and use of resources (I)

• Perhaps rethink H2020’s evaluation procedure• Make it an honor again to be FP evaluator (cfr. ERC)

Standing panels

(expert scientists, entrepreneurs, societal actors)

2-3 panel members

3-5 remote referees

Project application

+

Individual reviews

Panel conclusion

Provide toapplicant

Interview?

Stijn Delaurè, KU Leuven – Chair of LERU’s ERP community

E. Efficiency and use of resources (II)

• Simplification: job well-done (but continue efforts !)• Issues requiring urgent attention

• Clarification for the monthly hourly rates• Eligibility of internally invoiced costs• Full capacity for calculation of equipment costs

• Clear guidelines for auditors• Consistency and transparency are key

• Avoid new red tape • Built-in proportionality checks for e.g. ethical screenings



F. Coherence

• Internal H2020 coherence• PPPs, JTIs: more transparency (at all levels) and better

interaction with H2020• JPIs: introduce harmonised procedures• Don’t establish new actions; discontinue ineffective ones

• Coherence with external programmes• Introduce common set of rules for research across DGs• Solve pending issues regarding ‘synergies’ with SF



Grazie

[email protected]

Divisione Servizi per la RicercaUniversità degli Studi di Milano

LERU’s ERP Community


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